Central Negros Electric Cooperative is taking steps to purchase more power to address the demand of the growing number of businesses  opening in its coverage area, Ceneco general manager Sulpicio Lagarde  said yesterday.

The Ceneco coverage area is a business location of choice based on low cost of power, he said.

Ceneco is eyeing an agreement with the Green Core Geothermal Inc. in Brgy. Mailum, Bago City, Negros Occidental, to purchase  6  megawatts of electricity from it for  the  next 15 years at P4.6 billion, he said.

 GCGI, the power arm of Energy Development Corp., will start delivering electricity to the cooperative next year, or in December 2014, if the agreement pushes through, he said.

Aside from GCGI, Ceneco is also negotiating for the purchase of 5 megawatts of power from the Malogo River Mini-Hydro Power Plant in Silay City when it begins operations, Lagarde said.

     Bacolod and Iloilo are locations of choice for business locators  in Western  Visayas, he said. But  Bacolod’s edge is that it has cheaper power cost, Lagarde added.

At the 38th annual general membership assembly of Ceneco, held at the University of St. La Salle Coliseum, Lagarde had admitted that their service areas may face a possible power deficit by 2016.

Ceneco is currently purchasing power from the Unified Leyte Plant and has already inked power purchase agreements with KEPCO SPC and Palm Concepcion Power Corporation.

CENECO president Arnel Lapore said power plants should be built in other areas are  not serviceable, the province will still have electricity.

Lapore said CENECO has water rights over the Quipot and the  Maragandang rivers  in Bago City, which they can develop as a source of hydro-power in the future, but the cost for their development will be too high.

He said, unless, a private corporation is willing to have a joint venture with Ceneco, then the development of these rivers as sources of potential hydropower will be impossible.*APN

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